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Tuesday, 27 August 2013

Shailene Woodley Featured in FLAUNT Magazine: New Photoshoot & Interview

FLAUNT talks to Shailene Woodley about Divergent - being passionate about the character and project, The Spectacular Now, The Secret Life of the American
Teenager, fame, and how the down-to-earth actress still struggles to get her head around having fans. Also, check out this cute new black & white photo-shoot!

Interview and pictures after the cut:

Pictures

Outtakes

Interview
In Hollywood, everyone loves to make an actor part of a lineage. For
stars burgeoning into big time fame, there’s a tendency in the tabloids
to lean on an easy crutch: “This star is the next [fill in the blank].”
For Shailene Woodley, the 21-year-old actor whose breakout role came
alongside George Clooney in 2011’s The Descendants, the options of
choice are as follows:

a) Emma Watson
b) Jennifer Lawrence
c) Kristen Stewart

See, the young actor just finished filming Divergent, a futuristic,
dystopian film based on the Young Adult trilogy by Veronica Roth. And if
you’re remotely familiar with the names Hermione Granger, Katniss
Everdeen, or Bella Swan, you know what’s next. Serial movies,
particularly Young Adult series, can be the ticket to absurd amounts of
fame and enough work locked-in to define an actor’s entire career (who
among us didn’t think of Harry Potter as Watson got Bling Ring on us
with gyrating dance moves?). Then it’s pixie haircuts, nude magazine
covers, and half-baked album releases to get the public to shake loose
the all-consuming role.

As she’s prone to do, Woodley had to meditate on it. Her last go
around with a series left a sour taste in her mouth. “I didn’t like it
because if it started to change, I had no control over it,” she says of
her time on the television series The Secret Life of the American
Teenager. “It’s like anything in life, whether you’re an actor or you
work in an insurance office, if you want to be able to leave your job,
it’s nice to be able to leave your job. But when you’re in a contract,
unfortunately, you can’t do that.”

In the end, the opportunity to work with a stellar script had its
draws. Now, with the first film of the Divergent series entering
production, Woodley’s officially committed. In a matter of months,
you’ll be hearing the name Beatrice Prior a hell-of-a-lot more.

Speaking tiredly on the car ride back from Comic-Con, where she was
on a panel to discuss the film just two days after filming wrapped,
Woodley sounds like she’s in a good place with her decision. “I was
extremely passionate about the character, and about the project. I
thought that it was worth it to sign on to do another series.”

Like her Young Adult predecessors, she’s balancing a range of
scripts. While the Divergent series runs its course (possibly as long as
five years), smaller budget films with lesser-known directors will put
her mug on screens for indie crowds. Slated for an August release, James
Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now (already being called “the next The
Perks of Being a Wallflower” in some crowds and released by the same
distribution company) has Woodley cast as Aimee Finicky, a smart but
friendless high-schooler who befriends a popular party boy when he wakes
up hungover on her front lawn. Woodley says she’s proud to be a part of
one of Pondsolt’s first movies. “I think he’s going to be a director
that transcends the times.”

As she talks about the director, her voice is praising. “He gets to
know you so well as a person that he really doesn’t need to give you
much direction. He can point out when you’re being authentic and
truthful, and when you’re being disingenuous. He also recognizes that a
film isn’t just one person, it’s a collaborative effort…He made sure
that we as actors felt like we were establishing our characters
together, which really created a beautiful marriage of people’s creative
ideas.”

That kind of freedom is new for Woodley, who looks back on her
longest-standing role to date, on The Secret Life of the American
Teenager, with mixed feelings. “I’m extremely grateful for it; it was a
fantastic five years of my life, but towards the end, morally, the
things that we were preaching on that show weren’t really aligned with
my own integrity. So that was a bit hard to show up to work every day
knowing that we were going to project all of these themes to
thousands—millions—of young adults across the country, when in fact they
weren’t what I would like to be sending out.”

Switch-hitting won’t be a problem, though. “I’m not one of those
actors who feels like they need to get in character, to do any sort of
method acting situations. For me it’s all about learning my lines,
showing up on time, and professionally listening to what others are
saying, and then authentically and truthfully reacting off of their
expressions. So, it’s easy to drop roles, because I don’t feel like I
acquire them to begin with.”

The biggest adjustment for Woodley will likely be the level of fame
that Divergent brings. The most widely covered aspect of the film’s
release has been Woodley’s admission that she hesitated taking the role
because it might tear her out of what she considers “anonymity,” and put
her at a celebrity status that’s permenant.

“I just find the whole f word, this whole ‘fan’ word, so completely
fascinating. I think it’s one thing to be a fan of a particular
movie—growing up, I was a huge fan of The Goonies and certain bands or
musicians. [But] I look back at my favorite childhood films, and I don’t
remember being obsessed, or necessarily being a fan of a particular
actor. I was excited to see what they were going to do next, but…” she
trails off, the perplexity audible in her voice. “Now I feel like
there’s this odd sort of obsession with certain people. So, for me, I
try to separate myself from my project; and I hope that people support
that project. But when people are solely supporting me, it feels odd;
it’s something that I haven’t quite gotten used to and I don’t think I
ever will.”

Her inability to relate to fan frenzy is at the core of Woodley’s
reputation in the film world. She’s known to be a down-to-earth,
atypical Hollywood actress who shies away from the aspects of fame that
many actors claw toward. “You hear a lot about people who go out and put
themselves in the position to be photographed, and go to the places
where they’re expected to be seen. And because I don’t really read those
weekly magazines, I don’t really know who or what people are talking
about right now. But I think somebody like Jennifer Lawrence handles it
incredibly well, or Kate Winslet. Strong women who are able to maintain
their personal lives, yet graciously—and gratefully—entertain the other
side of their lives as well.”

For her own part, Woodley has maintained a certain graciousness thus
far. In the past, she’s shown up to events for films she’s featured in
with wet hair and no makeup, and defends her need to represent the real
her. She’s openly spiritual (#SpiritJunkie is her self-descriptive
hashtag of choice) and takes to social media frequently to endorse
causes she’s invested in, from genetically modified food labeling
(“Unapproved #GE @MonsantoCO wheat found in #Oregon field.
Tell @USDA to
ban all GE field tests immediately”) to positive body image (“when are
we going to learn! EVERY BODY IS PERFECT!… ‘fitting in’ is
boring!!!!!!”) to environmental issues (re-tweeting Mark Ruffalo, of
whom she’s a big fan, to celebrate big companies making the switch to
solar and wind power).

“I think everything about my lifestyle is fairly alternative. I
gather my own spring water from mountains every month. I go to a farm to
get my food. I make everything from my own toothpaste to my own body
lotions and face oils,” she laughs at the long list. “I could go on for
hours. I make my own medicines; I don’t get those from doctors. I make
my own cheese and forage wild foods and identify wild plants. It’s an
entire lifestyle. It’s appealing to my soul.”

The vibe that comes through in talking to her is that she’d have been
at home in the peace-loving days of the ’70s. Four separate times, she
begins her answer with a variation of the qualifier, “Well, I can’t
speak for other people. I only have my own experiences.”

The closest she
gets to taking a shot at the fame-whore game is when she’s asked to
elaborate on where celebrity obsession might come from. “I think it
might be a generational thing because now more than ever we have
disgusting reality TV shows that are projecting awful images of women to
the public, and giving this bizarre outlook on what it means to ‘be on
television.’ It feels very exploitative.”

Still, the current state of celebrity isn’t enough to put her off
acting, which she says is second nature and “work” only in the sense
that she does it for a living. Her twenties—often the most troublesome
decade for young stars—lie ahead, foreseeably packed with notable roles.
Woodley, though, is likely to take it all with measure. “I think people
in this industry make it harder on themselves than they need to. It’s
easy to be happy. It’s easier to be happy than to not be.”

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